New Data, Same Story

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released new data on the prevalence of diabetes. Diabetes is on the rise. Nearly 24 million people in the US have diabetes, up 3 million from 2 years ago. The estimates, based on 2007 data, also show that 57 million people have pre-diabetes, a condition that puts people at increased risk for diabetes. The St. Louis Diabetes Coalition summarized the scope of the pre-diabetes problem in St. Louis on one slide (download here). The CDC report also showed that to 25 percent of people with diabetes do not know they have it, the CDC said — down from 30 percent two years ago. Good news: outreach and screening seems to be working. Bad news: obesity, poor diet, and lack of physical activity are driving up the number of new cases…. quite rapidly.